Liberal group uses outside money to match GOP

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, chairwoman of a new liberal group promising to spend millions of dollars against Republicans in the 2012 election, told POLITICO that Democrats’ qualms about outside spending shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of the party’s key substantive issues.

“Citizens United unleashed the power of corporate giving and individuals secretly giving money,” Kennedy Townsend told POLITICO in her first interview since word of the new group, American Bridge, leaked two weeks ago. “I want to see that we have the ability to fight back.”

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“I think what’s most important is that people get the health care they need and that we get financial reform,” she said. “I want to make sure that we have the resources and the message to win in the next campaign cycle.”

Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland and daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, will head a so-called “Super PAC,” a new variety of group that, under the dilapidated campaign finance laws, accepts unlimited contributions but reports its donors to the Federal Election Commission.

“We’re disclosing all our donors,” said Kennedy Townsend, who declined to comment on other Democratic groups that won’t disclose their contributions. “American democracy has to be based on transparency and who’s giving and why are they giving.”

Democrats were battered in 2010 by a wave of unlimited and, in part, undisclosed spending from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and new outside groups led by American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, funding in six- and seven and even eight-figure chunks by wealthy Republicans, the health care industry and other groups. Democrats matched that spending in 2008 with money raised in smaller chunks by its party committees. But the birth of American Bridge, in which Media Matters founder David Brock is also playing a lead role, represents the first tangible reaction to the Republican money.

The election “was a wakeup call for donors,” said Kennedy Townsend.

“Your choice is do you want to sit home and feel unhappy? The other choice is the Republicans taking over,” she said.

The New York Times reported today that Kennedy Townsend and Brock, the group’s treasurer, have commitments of $4 million from liberal donors.

The launch of American Bridge represents as shift away from President Obama’s 2008 ban — simultaneously high-minded and serving the interest of his well-funded, tightly controlled campaign — on his supporters funding outside groups.

"Get involved in the campaign that we've set up, that is aboveboard, that is transparent, that is legal, and I think if people channel their energies in that way, we'll all be better off," he told donors at the time.

But in the waning days of the 2008 election, Obama’s senior aides signaled that their true objection was to secret money, a view Kennedy Townsend echoed.

American Bridge will be the transparent arm of a broader liberal network, some of which — like the Media Matters Action Networks, which Brock chairs — doesn’t disclose its donors.

Brock, who recruited Kennedy Townsend to the group, she said, stressed that the two are “completely separate organizations.”

He said that in his view, Democrats shouldn’t allow their objections to the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of corporate spending in politics in the Citizens United case prevent them from matching that corporate spending.

“I was troubled by the new rules of the road given to us by a Republican-controlled Supreme Court in Citizens United,” he said. “We don’t make the rules. We have to make 2012 a more equal contest than 2010. In my view, we can’t surrender everything because of the Citizens United decision.”

Kennedy Townsend also decried Citizens United as a “terrible decision.”

Kennedy Townsend, who has been involved since her 2002 defeat in the race for Maryland governor, in a range of causes, chairing the University of Maryland’s anti-AIDS Institute for Human Virology; working on Kennedy family causes and serving on a panel that sought to reform the now-defunct community organizing group ACORN.

She said American Bridge hopes to begin airing ads within the next six months.

Readers' Comments (207)

So now the left is saying "Can't beat em, join em." This will go as well for them as Air America did. At some point they just need to realize that "progressive ideas are only good if you are either unemployed or a public sector member feeding at the trough. The rest of us have had to tighten our belts and are sick of being (Al) gored for their benefit. Can't wait for the 2012 "shellacking."

Let me recreate the manner which danceswithtrees treats liberals, as it were towards conservatives.

So apparently the right is perfectly fine with outside spending so long as it benefits their party, but get uppity when the left join the fray. Conservatives are perfectly fine allowing their politicians pockets to be lined with foreign and corporate money so long as they get to keep fighting their culture war bullsh't issues that have no substantive value. They allow tax cuts for the wealthiest, and the most affluent, even though trickle down economics is proven hackery, and has lead to the greatest disparity of wealth since before the great depression. These rednecks, and old white racist men just can't stand a Black man in the whitehouse, and will vote against their own interests so long as they get the black man replaced with a white republican.

In the mean time, while they go about making ill conceived attacks about 'leftists', their party will self implode once people re-realize the hypocrisy and dysfunction of the Republican party; the party that got us into the recession in the first place. Can't wait for 2012, when they put up Sarah Palin, who will get trounced by Obama.

This will go as well for them as Air America did. At some point they just need to realize that "progressive ideas are only good if you are either unemployed or a public sector member feeding at the trough.

Conservatives have such short ... memories.

Air America at least helped frame the issues and define the arguments. It didn't work in time for 2004, but have you already forgotten 2006 and 2008.

Progressive ideas are also good for many of those who are currently employed in safe conditions at a living wage, those of dark skin who are able to use the same public transportation as those with light skin, those who have electricity and indoor plumbing, are able to read, have roads to drive on etc.

Whats the matter, you educated idiots run out of other peoples money? LOL

By the time Libs are done with the Dem party and America not even the professional students living in there parents basements will be able to give them anything out of their unemployment checks to assure they continue for another 99 weeks.

Soros his 501C3s and the extreme left are plotting against Obama and his toxic administration, the Dem party is imploding, and to top it all off they ( liberals globally ) are a liability to the world let alone themselves. Liberal countries are failing to the rest of the worlds detriment just like our liberal states are about to.

You cant get money out of a turnip morons, perhaps you should have thought about this before you created at the very least a double dip recession by jambing multi thousand page bills back to back for two years strait. Maybe some more attention to jobs and lower taxes could have helped you in your current predicament.

Stop watching fox news and listening to el Rushbo for your talking points, you look like an idiot when you do.

No, the main problem is corporations have learned how to squeeze every last dollar out of the working class, and since there is no money in people's pockets, there is no spending, and no spending means no reason to grow business operations, which means no jobs. And your party wants to dump more money into the pockets of the rich. Good luck with that. I can't believe you actively campaign on behalf of the greatest set of crooks and liars we've seen since the robber barons.

Protect the wealthy, protect the (profiting) corporations, stomp on the middle class: Republicans.

there is no double dip. the private sector has been creating jobs for the last few months. the losses have been coming from State, local and the Federal governments. and what's wrong with health care for everyone and trying to rein in shyster bankers? Republicans do vote against there own self interests unless of course you're one of the 1% who have been making all the gains since Reagan. a working man voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Bush trashes this country and the Right forgets all about it. it'll take more than a couple years to clean up their messes. kudos to moof and Original.

there is no double dip. the private sector has been creating jobs for the last few months. the losses have been coming from State, local and the Federal governments. and what's wrong with health care for everyone and trying to rein in shyster bankers? Republicans do vote against there own self interests unless of course you're one of the 1% who have been making all the gains since Reagan. a working man voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Bush trashes this country and the Right forgets all about it. it'll take more than a couple years to clean up their messes. kudos to moof and Original.

No, the main problem is corporations have learned how to squeeze every last dollar out of the working class, and since there is no money in people's pockets,

Thats what being in business means genius. Our governemnts part is to make an atmosphere where businesses arent afraid of what their going to do and when they're going to do it. Instead of creating that atmosphere in a ( democratic imposed ) recession ( mortgage crisis ) they concentrated on a far left agenda leaving Americans and small businesses to fend for themselves. We all know corporations have been waiting for them to be voted out. The Times is taking advantage of the fact corporations are on the verge of spending and hiring. The real question is, will it be to late? Did Obama and his cohorts do to much damage before the election he knew he would take a shellacking in because of the very scenario he was creating since he walked in the doors of the White House.

greatest set of crooks and liars we've seen since the robber barons.

The Obama administration? Crooks and Robber Barons are pretty light to what Id refer to them as.

Nice try at a spin, posting a one sided elitist left wing Times article wasnt to your advantage. If you want both sides of your issue, you might think about tuning in to FOX sometime.

And even when outside spending on television advertising and direct mail is added to the mix, Republicans still haven’t closed the gap.

The money race totals come to $856 million for the Democratic committees and their aligned outside groups, compared to $677 for their Republican adversaries, based on figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Money was NOT the issue in 2010. The dems outspent the repubs thanks to the UNIONS. However, since Soros and moveon.org are giving up on obama........... I guess you guys better really start to hustle and waste a LOT of money on that disaster obama and his redistributional TRICKLE DOWN POVERTY policies. I look forward to your TOTAL DEFEAT.

It is but, Im really not into total Rep control either, well from 2012 to 2014 just enough to repeal Obamas country crushing agenda.

I really dont know how Dems are going to go about ridding themselves of this terrible progressive problem they have gotten themselves into. After this administration is done with the party there may have to be a third party just to keep the peace. Nobody but the exrteme left will vote for them for generations if they dont. They will be shunned from the PAC events and primaries like the progrssives of the early 1900s were.